Attention and interest : a study in psychology and education / by Felix Arnold.

  • Arnold, Felix, 1879-
Date:
1910
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Attention and interest : a study in psychology and education / by Felix Arnold. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    facilitated by narrowing and specialising a given field, unity will tend to be selected in preference to distribution of attention. Moreover, complete control is possible only when a given totality is presented as a unitary whole. We have but a single body with which to take an attitude, a single pair of hands with which to work and manipulate an object or situation. The visual field, too, holds objects together in an elliptical form which may become further narrowed in motor control. Finally, when too many objects strive to hold the focus of attention, there results a feeling of strain, of unrest, of dissatisfaction, even of pain. On this account there will be a tendency to shut out such disturbing situations, and to seek or construct more simple and unified ones. It is a remarkable fact that most systems of philosophy seek to find some universal prin- ciple, law, ground, ete., which will explain the multiplicity of events. The tendency to explain things by simple reasons, and to connect phe- nomena through analogy is probably due to the same cause. Unity gives ease, rest, and satisfac- tion, and so is sought even when the seeking dis- torts truth. The apparent discreteness in the field of visual] attention in which from three to five objects seem